Kennesaw State University Surveillance Capitalism Discussion

Note the assignment date for this is kinda weird, as it lists Friday, November 11th. But that is just when you start it, i.e. when you create the document for the project, you will be adding to this for over a week, a little bit each day. Until you complete it on November 18th.

By now you have seen a lot of information on how you are tracked and manipulated through digital environments, whether this is by “Big Brother” (those in power tracking you), “Little Brother” (how we are all watching each other all the time), or “Creepy Uncle” (how big tech monitors us for Surveillance Capitalism). Starting today we are going to work on getting some of that control back. It’s worth noting here that most of what you are going to do is really about stopping the corporate trackers (all of those cookies) not encrypting your data so that no one can read it (i.e preventing the government from seeing your data). This is just about getting a little bit of control back.

There is something to do every day here to try and further control you have of your online presence.

An important note on the structure of this assignment, each day there is something “more” to do. That is for the next seven days you are gradually going to add things in. Then starting on Sunday you will have a daily question to answer, once you have been doing something for 2 days. So for example on Friday you will start using a browser with a good adblocker, and then on Sunday answer a question about that. On Saturday, you are going to try and create a false ad profile and then on Monday answer a question about that.

If you have trouble following the steps don’t worry, I have set up a separate discussion thread for helping you with this. Just head on over to this question and ask for help.

Pro Tip: Schedule a time each day for the next week to do this, doing it at the same time each day, that way you won’t forget. Make it your before dinner, or after dinner routine. Or the thing you do over morning coffee.

Day One: Friday, November 11th. Blocking Browser Trackers.

Start: Create a document, adding it to your COM 201 work folder. Title this document “Taking Back Control.” You will use it each day to answer questions from this assignment. This needs to be a separate document from your class notes.

Rules for the week. For the next week you should only browse the web with a “good” web browser. Basically this means use Firefox.

Links to an external site. Google will automatically log you into the browser on Chrome, so you have to do a bunch of extra steps to stop this. So instead use Firefox.

Step One: Block the Trackers. On your computer.

(Note this is what we covered in class)

To do this you can use a plugin.

• Firefox Install Ublock Origin (Links to an external site.). (Note you can also install this in Chrome later if you want. Chrome uBlock Origin (Links to an external site.)). Make sure you get UBlock Origin, there are others that are similar, you want the Origin one. Again make sure you get this one, there are lots of copy cats that are actually really bad. So make sure you have this one.
• You will know you have it working when you see a red badge icon that displays the number of cookies being blocked per site.

• Now clear out all of your cookies (this will force you to login into accounts again). You do this in Preferences of your web browser.
• Make this new “Ad Blocked Browser” your default browser on your computer. (How do to this on Mac,

Links to an external site. Windows.

• Links to an external site.)

Step Two: Better Browsing on Your Phone.

For your phones and tablets download the Brave Browser and use it instead of whatever browser you normally use.

Same as above, make this the default browser for your phone, use this for the week.

Note you will run into a bunch of sites that ask you to turn off your ad blocker, you don’t need to, you can often just check that you did and proceed.

Questions for Notes Day One: No questions.

Day Two: Saturday, November 12th. Outside of Google.

We think of Google as the only way to search for things. It’s not. Google provides a good search engine, but only because they want access to all your data. Like this is their model. Time to stop this, you do not need Google. For the rest of the week two rules about Google.

1. Only log into Google when you are using it. This means you can log into Google when you are doing course work and need to access your account. But when you are done log out. Stay logged out of Google as much as possible. (Another way to do this is use Chrome to do coursework, but all other internet things use Firefox.)

2. Do not use Google the search engine. (You can use Google Maps, getting off Google Maps is a whole other effort we don’t have time for.) What do you use instead of Google?

• Use DuckDuckGo. This works exactly like Google, except they don’t personalize ads for you and don’t track your data, the ads you get are generic. They also are a Paoli company. www.duckduckgo.com

• Links to an external site.Note: This is really confusing but there are 2 things called DuckDuckGo, one is the browser (you can install on your phone), the other is a search engine that you can use whenever you need a search engine.

Switch the default search engine on your browser and phone to DuckDuckGo. How do you do that? Glad you asked.

Links to an external site.

Questions Day Two: Still no questions yet.

Day Three: Sunday, November 13th. Lets Try and Fool Social Media

Pick a mundane product. Really anything, socks, pens, coffee mugs, watches, lamps, stuffed animals whatever, but make it mundane. Make it something you wouldn’t mind seeing lots of like. Something pleasant. Now search for that product on Google click on lots of links (it’s okay to use Google for this part of assignment). Search on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and any other social media platform you use. It is crucial that you do this on FB even if you don’t use it as it will populate across other platforms once FB uses this. If you do this well you should start seeing targeted ads on those platforms for this product. And here is the fun part. Every time you see an ad for that product click on it. But do not click on any other ads. If you do this well you should be able to get lots of ads for that product, but only that product. Like I did this for rain jackets and sunglasses, my social media feed ads were probably 80% these products. Like done well on Instagram and all your ads should be from the same genre.

Questions Day Three: By now for two days you should have been blocking trackers across most websites and blocking a lot of ads. What did you notice that was different about the web now that you are blocking cookies and ads? What was better what was worse? What things were broken? What worked better? What problems did you encounter and have to work around? What types of sites were most affected? Give specific examples. (Answer should be like 300 words.)

Day Four: Monday, November 14th. Stop The Spy in Your Pocket

Your phone is really a huge surveillance device. Basically a spy in your pocket. Follow this guide by the Tactical Technology collective (Links to an external site.) on cleaning up your SmartPhone profile. Especially important here is cleaning up those apps you don’t use and/or making sure you restrict permission for what those apps are allowed to do.

Question Day Four: What differences did you notice when not using Google? Which search engine were you using? What worked better, what worse? Were there certain types of things that were easier to search for? harder? How did this search engine compare to Google. (300 words.)

Day Five: Tuesday, November 15th. Fight Your Phone

The first step here to understanding how to take back control is to realize the playing field isn’t equal. Tech companies are using scientific and research projects to figure out how to manipulate you without you even knowing. Read Tristan Harris on, How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds (Links to an external site.). Note Harris is the one from the documentary we watched at the beginning of class, The Social Dilemma.

Notice as Harris points out, how much of the design here is to manipulate you into acting the way they want.

Time to stop the manipulation.

Phones are so annoying, they are always demanding your attention. Time to stop that. Two things to do.

1. Turn off all notifications, save for phone calls. (If you really want you can leave the texting notifications on in case of emergency, but I recommend turning these off as well.) To do this is pretty simple go to Settings -> Notifications -> Apps. Look at every app, and turn off notifications. This will stop all the pop up notifications on your phone. You will also want to do this on your computer if you are using a Mac, to prevent text messages from interrupting you.
2. Phones are too bright and colorful. You can make your phone grayscale. Here is a tutorial. (Links to an external site.)When done correctly you should be able to triple click your home screen and alternate between black and white and color.

Question Day Five: For two days you should have been working on getting your social media feed to only be one type of product/item. What did you pick? How successful were you? What percentage of ads did this work for? Was it different on different platforms? Did this change your experience of those platforms. (300 words)

Day Six: Wednesday, November 16th. Minimize Targeted Ads on Social Media

Let’s try and limit targeted ads. The steps you did during Day One should limit the ads you see on most websites, and limit or at least slow down the tracking. Now that you have tricked the social media to giving you certain types of ads it is time to stop or slow some of the social media websites as well.

Follow this guide. (Links to an external site.) At the end of the article is a list of guides to limiting targeted advertising on these sites. Important as this guide notes this doesn’t stop data collection, it just prevents that data from being used to advertise at you. Pick 3-4 platforms you use regularly and follow the guides to stop those platforms from targeting ads at you.

Question Day Six: Are you annoyed yet? How messed up is your media use at this point, how much extra time are you spending just trying to navigate all these tools that get you some privacy? (300 words).

Day Seven: Thursday, November 17th.

Nothing new to do, just answer the following question.

Question Day Seven: How has removing notifications changed your phone use? What about the grayscale mode? (300 words)

Day Eight: Friday November 18th.

Nothing new to do, just answer the final question.

Final Essay on this project.

Take time to draft and answer carefully the following regarding this project overall. While your answers above can be more of a diary format, this set of answers you want to be a polished essay. Answer each of the three questions here.

1. In doing this assignment what would you say are the biggest effects of platform surveillance on your everyday lives, how does platform surveillance shape your online experiences? (400 words)

2. There were probably parts of this assignment that were easier, parts that were harder. What was the most challenging? Why is gaining control of privacy settings and attention hacking so challenging? Why don’t platforms make this easier? (400 words)

3. Reflect back on these steps as a whole, what ones had positive effects on your life? negative? not much at all? Which ones are you likely to keep doing? Which ones are you likely to not? Why? (400 words)

Make sure you answer this by Friday November 18th at 11:59pm.